NHS must change to avert crisis

14th March 2012

Health secretary Andrew Lansley has warned that the NHS must change to avert a crisis.

Writing in the British Journal of Nursing, he mounted a defence of his NHS reforms and said he did not care about attacks from health professionals over them as the proposed changes would stop the service from collapsing.

He also criticised Labour’s “hypocritical” opposition to the plans.

Mr Lansley said: “Some people say we should not have embarked on this programme of NHS reform. To those people who doubt what we are doing I would say, because of the pressures we are facing, we cannot afford not to reform the NHS.

“To take the approach advocated by Labour of simply sitting on our hands would be storing up a crisis for the future.”

He said easier decision to take would have been not to reform the NHS.

“We could have just protected the NHS from cuts, put in an extra £12.5bn and left it there. But sooner or later the cracks would have started to show. New treatments would have been held back. Queues would have grown. Patients would have been let down,” he added.

Criticism from medical professionals had not deterred him and that he was not worried about being popular among health workers.

However, his stance over the reform plan drew further criticism from Labour.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “The health secretary has demonstrated once again why we are in this problem; his dismissive attitude and inability to listen. His siege mentality is preventing him from seeing the bigger picture.”